where n is a positive integer and the a‘s in front of the x‘s are any real numbers. The numbers in front of the x‘s are called the coefficients. For this post I will only be looking at polynomials with integer (positive or negative) coefficients and polynomials where the first coefficient is 1.

And we want to do this because of the Null Factor Law. Please see my post about this law but it means that once a polynomial is factored, the values of x that make each factor 0, make the whole polynomial 0.

As an example, it is not obvious what values of x make x² -11x + 30 equal to 0. But if you knew that this polynomial is also equal to (x – 5)(x – 6), then you can immediately see that x = 5 and x = 6 are the zeroes of these factors and are therefore the zeroes of the polynomial.

Now it is not always easy to factor polynomials, but the next few posts will talk about some methods to help do this.

So we know the factors will look like \[
{(}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{+}\hspace{0.33em}{a}{)(}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{+}\hspace{0.33em}{b}{)}
\] and we need to find the a and b so that the factored form is equivalent to the left side of the equation. a and b must be numbers that multiply to equal 24 and add or subtract to equal +2, the coefficient in front of the x. 8 and 3 do not work as they do not add or subtract to equal 2. However, 6 and 4 look like contenders.

So the signs of 6 and 4 must be such that they add to equal +2 but multiply to equal -24. Looks like +6 and -4 work so

where a, b, and c are specific numbers. I have been merciful so far in that I have only looked at equations where a = 1. If it is some other value, it’s a little more difficult to factor, but it can be done. However, I will use the quadratic formula to work with these in my next post.

This can also be done in reverse by un-distributing the x to get the expression back into factored form so that you can take advantage of the Null Factor Law. What I didn’t cover, was how to take an expression like \[
{(}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{-}\hspace{0.33em}{7}{)(}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{+}\hspace{0.33em}{5}{)}
\] and un-factor it. To do this, you can distribute each term in the first set of brackets with each term in the second set:

we could not use the Null Factor Law. So what can you do if given this equation? There is a way to solve this using something called the Quadratic Formula, but that will be covered later. Here I will show how to factor this equation back to the original form we started with so that we can use the Null Factor Law.

So the goal is to take \[
{x}^{2}\hspace{0.33em}{-}\hspace{0.33em}{2}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{-}\hspace{0.33em}{35}
\] and get it in the form

(something)(something else). If you look at how we unfactorised this, you can see that I can start with

\[
{(}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{+}\hspace{0.33em}{a}{)(}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{+}\hspace{0.33em}{b}{)}
\], where we need to find the a and the b so that the expressions are equivalent. I know this is the way to start as the two x‘s are needed to get \[
{x}^{2}
\] when they are multiplied together. Now to find the a and the b, including the sign of each, you need to look at all the possible factors of the known number in the quadratic, in this case -35, that add up to the coefficient of the middle term, in this case -2. Again, this is suggested if you look at how we expanded \[
{(}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{-}\hspace{0.33em}{7}{)}{(}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{+}\hspace{0.33em}{5}{)}
\]. The last number in the expansion (-35) is generated by multiplying the -7 and the +5. These two numbers also multiply the x‘s which are eventually added together to get the middle term, in this case -2x.

So to find the a and the b in \[
{(}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{+}\hspace{0.33em}{a}{)(}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{+}\hspace{0.33em}{b}{)}
\], let’s look at the possible factors of 35 (ignoring the sign for the moment): 35 and 1 or 7 and 5. 35 and 1 do indeed multiply to equal 35 but their addition or subtraction together do not equal 2. That leaves 7 and 5 which do satisfy both requirements: 7 × 5 = 35, 7 – 5 = 2. Now all that remains is to determine the signs. Since their multiplication has to equal -35, one of the numbers needs to be negative. And since the coefficient of the middle term is negative, the large number 7 needs to be negative as well. So in this case a = -7 and b = + 5 so that the factorisation we are looking for is \[
{(}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{+}\hspace{0.33em}{a}{)(}{x}\hspace{0.33em}{+}\hspace{0.33em}{b}{)}
\]. Now we can use the Null Factor Law to solve the equation, as we had done previously.

Not all quadratics can be factored like this, but this is a good skill to develop with practise. I will do several more examples in my next post.

At first glance, it looks like the null factor law doesn’t apply here. But I did a post on the distributive property. Please review that if needed, but notice that there is a common factor of x in each of the terms on the left side of the equation. I can un-distribute this x to get:

Looks like the null factor law can be used as there are now two factors on the left side. So mentally setting each of these to zero, we get the two solutions x = 0 or -5.

I covered a similar example on my post about quadratic equations. You can click on the tags on the right or below (depending on the device you are viewing this on) to directly go to previous posts on the listed topics.